A Northern Ireland start-up has created a headset that could spot the early signs of conditions like Alzheimer's alongside help from a leading financial software giant.

BrainWaveBank, based in Belfast, has developed a high-resolution brainwave scanning headset that can be worn at home while playing engaging mobile games.

The headset monitors electrical brain activity to spot patterns that could be early indications of brain conditions.

Technology developed by Newry-based First Derivatives, called Kx, has been chosen by BrainWaveBank to power the headset.

The agreement will allow BrainWaveBank to build the world's first 'big data' collection of brainwave activity data and to target the cognitive health assessment market, expected to reach US $8.1bn (£6bn) in 2021, according to analysts MarketsandMarkets.

Brian Conlon, chief executive of First Derivatives, said: "BrainWaveBank is led by experienced computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology experts with a business development road map that is capable of transforming the way cognitive health is measured and treated.

"Combining this domain expertise with our Kx technology has the potential to deliver new insights in this important area of healthcare."